Transformers 4 Update: It's New, It's Blue, It's Downtown

Work is underway on a special effects prop at Paramount's set on Washington Boulevard.
[Photos from Transformers Live Action Movie Blog]

News about downtown Detroit's China set being built for "Transformers 4" comes from a blog for fans devoted to the film series. (Yes, our kind of site too!)

A local observer, identified only as Jerry B., this week snapped an addition to Paramount's fenced construction site at Washington Boulevard and Clifford. Here's what the unnamed blogger says:

A blue Styrofoam cylindrical contraption is being constructed on a large wooden base. Usually a blue prop is a signal that visual effects will be used to fill out the rest of the piece, but it is needed as the actors will be interacting with it physically in some way.

In the past that included a blue portion of Prime's shoulder being built or a blue mock-up of the Decepticon ship that Shia LaBeouf rode on in "Dark of the Moon."

This subway car also is on the movie production set.

The writer speculates, wildly, that it could be a new space ship, part of a Transformer or "maybe a portion of a building for when TF4 production moves to China." 

A reader suggests that it "could be part of Demolishor/Scavenger from 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.' The Chinese scientists would probably be still studying him or something and some sort of experiment probably goes wrong, which attracts the main Decepticon villain." The reference is to the second installment in the blockbuster sci fi series, directed by Steven Spielberg and released in 2009.

The fan's eight photos at the link below include a subway car on a flatbed truck (right).

Construction reportedly is due to be done by the end of July for filming in early August. There's buzz online that other scenes will be shot sometime this summer on the former Boblo Island boat at the Nicholson terminal and dock on the Rouge River, near where it flows into the Detroit River.

Interior action is being filmed at Michigan Motion Picture Studios in Pontiac.

The film, due to hit screens next June, is directed by Michael Bay and stars Mark Wahlberg. Its full name is undisclosed.